Heretofore, there has been no attempt to provide a lockout for the ascending register of a mechanical postage meter. Considering that the postage meter has been in commercial use for more than fifty years, the major improvement of an ascending register lockout is rather unique. The reason for the aforementioned improvement, revolves around the need to uniformly maintain and service the meters.
Many meters have gone through their ascending register limit many times without ever being repaired or without even requiring service. While most postage meters can go many years without being repaired, it has been determined that a uniform check-up would improve postal security. Therefore, if each postage meter was automatically disabled after a given extent of use, it could be brought back for inspection and reactivation. This would provide a uniform procedure of inspecting the postage meters at uniform intervals.
The present inventive ascending lockout system was conceived as a means of fulfilling the above objective.